


Leave Behind

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Abandonment Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-07
Updated: 2011-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequence of four drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wendymr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wendymr).



**1\. Jack Harkness**

The Dalek fires. There is nothing more.

Nothing, until Jack comes, gasping, back to life. To find the TARDIS dematerialising in front of him, to find himself alone.

The Doctor left. Left him behind, deliberately.

He's always known it won't last. Things that are too good to be true usually don't. But he'd expected to have a little longer. For it to end a little less abruptly.

Death surrounds him. The Daleks are gone - how, he doesn't know - but all the humans are dead, too. He is alone.

 _Never doubted him, never will._

Alone, here, now, he begins to doubt.

~*~

 **2\. Jack Harkness**

Another graveyard, another grave.

Jack has seen too many. It's not taken him many years of immortality to understand why the Doctor leaves people behind, never to return: much easier than seeing them dead and buried. If they left, they're still out there - for a time traveller, they'll always still be out there. He could visit any time.

That's why he doesn't.

Jack, though, has never managed that. He stands at another friend's grave, and he knows. He'll always be the one left behind.

 _Better to have loved and lost ..._ In his better moments, he still manages to believe it.

~*~

 **3\. The Doctor**

"Go!" Jack gives him a push, and the Doctor tumbles down the slope. Above him, Jack holds the boulder in place with straining muscles.

He looks back for a fraction of a second, then turns. Runs.

Behind him, eventually, a rockslide roars. Jack has lost his battle against gravity.

It takes him days to dig Jack out. The Doctor clutches the dead body to him, tightly.

"I left you behind," he says later, helplessly. The corner of his mouth turns down in disgust. "Again." He can't look at his friend. "I always do, don't I?"

Jack smiles. "You came back."

~*~

 **4\. The Doctor**

The Doctor wipes a hand across his mouth, wet from their kiss. "You're sending me away?"

Jack shrugs helplessly. "I don't know what else to do."

It's taken them so long to get to this point. The Doctor isn't ready to leave it behind just yet.

He scrutinises Jack until he sees it. "If you love something, let it go," he murmurs.

Jack flinches, but says nothing.

The Doctor bites his lips, bounces on his feet. There's nothing here for him. He should move on. But ... "Did it occur to you that it applies to us both?"

They both stay.


End file.
